Magnus and His Family Ch. 10

Magnus and His Family (Chapter 10)

Kathryn M. Burke

Adele didn't waste any time in having the heart-to-heart talk with her mom. The very next day, she went over to Somerville to have it out with her. Jenna lived in an apartment in a not particularly prosperous part of town—but it was about all she could afford after leaving her husband, and in some strange way the seediness of the place, and of the general neighborhood, seemed to suit her mood. Adele had never liked it—it gave her the creeps—and she also sensed that it really wasn't a good place for her mom. They would have a lot to talk about.

Jenna let her daughter into the apartment with some nervousness and trepidation. She made a token offer of coffee to her daughter, which Adele declined.

"So," Adele said with a big sigh, "you and Magnus . . ."

"I don't want to talk about that!" Jenna said irrationally, as if that wasn't the very reason why Adele was there.

"Mom, come on," Adele said, almost rolling her eyes. "We gotta talk about it. In a way I'm glad it happened, because it makes things easier."

"Wh-what do you mean?" Jenna stammered.

"Mom," Adele said heavily, "you've been pretty unhappy after you split from Dad. Why don't you just admit it? I don't really know why that happened, but maybe you need to start thinking about what you want to do with your life."

Jenna's eyes blazed. "You have no right to talk to me like that, young lady!"

"Mom, we're both adults. We—"

"Especially since you slipped into that man's bed so easily yourself!"

"It was quite a different situation. Anyway, what's done is done. What we need to do is figure out how we're going to proceed."

Jenna eyed Adele with a sudden sense of alarm, even fear. Even now, she could hardly bring herself to raise the issue that was uppermost in her mind.

"Magnus," she said, as if uttering the name of some damned soul—"does he . . . does he really sleep with his own daughter?" Those last words were uttered in a harried whisper.

Adele sighed again. "Yes, Mom, he does."

Jenna melodramatically slapped a hand over her mouth. "Omigod! That horrible man! And that poor girl!"

"Mom, it's really no big deal."

"No big deal!"

"Mom, Kristen's an adult, just like us. It was her decision to begin sleeping with him. And they do it out of love—nothing more. They have a wonderful relationship; they both feel a lot better, physically and emotionally, because of this. I'm not saying everyone should do it. This is a special case, and it works for them."

Jenna listened to this speech with increasing agitation—but then, all of a sudden, she seemed deflated.

"Okay," she mumbled, almost to herself, "if you say so."

"The question is," Adele pressed, "what we're going to do. Or, really, what you're going to do." With a twinkle in her eye, she added, "You seem to have gotten along with him pretty well."

"Stop that!" Jenna cried. "I—I didn't mean for that to happen. He—he seduced me!"

"And he seems to have done a good job of it. He's just a big teddy bear, isn't he?"

Jenna was on the point of agreeing, but for the sake of her self-respect she couldn't bring herself to do so.

"He made me feel so—so small and weak," she complained.

"Oh, Mom, don't be silly," Adele said. "He's just used to doing that. What do you expect him to do?"

"Especially," Jenna muttered, again more to herself than to her daughter, "when he—" When he entered my bottom. "I was so helpless."

"Mom, listen to me," Adele said urgently. "I may not have much experience in this department, but I've been thinking a lot about this.

"You know," she went on sententiously, "women have made a lot of advances in the last several decades, going all the way back to when we got the right to vote. And now we're showing the world what we can do! I mean, there are way more girls than boys in college, and we've made huge strides in so many other ways. We've shown that we're just as smart and capable and determined as any man. There's practically no job—well, except maybe playing football—where we can't compete on more or less equal terms with a man.

"But in the area of sex—well, I think we have to take a back seat."

"Why do you say that?" Jenna said sharply.

"Because," Adele said, as if playing a trump card, "of the fundamental inequality of the sex act."

"What the dickens are you talking about?"

"Mom, think about it. A man can enter a woman, but a woman can't enter a man. That's it in a nutshell."

Jenna opened her mouth as if to make an objection, but after a few moments she shut it. She could think of nothing to say.

"Even when a woman's on top—and I love being on top, let me tell you, and Magnus loves it too—I'm still putting him in me; I'm not going into him. And so, the woman almost always ends up being more or less passive—or 'helpless,' as you say—when it comes to sex. The man does most of the work; we lie there and take it. I'm not saying we should just sit back like a corpse and take it; but really, that male organ really does dominate the action, and dominates us. That doesn't mean that a man is 'better' than us or 'superior' to us; it just means he goes into us but we don't go into him.

"So I say, let's just go ahead and let men dominate in this one area! What's the big deal? It takes us so much effort to make headway in other fields—why not just take it easy and let the guy do what he wants in bed? Doing that might actually energize us for going out into the world and taking over. Because we are taking over, you know. So the poor guys are just left with taking charge in bed—and they're welcome to it!"

This incredible speech left Jenna slack-jawed. She sensed there was some lapse of logic somewhere, but for the life of her she couldn't identify just where.

"Okay, fine," she said, dismissing the subject. "There's still the matter of what to do about this whole situation."

"Yeah," Adele said with a smirk, "especially since you jumped into bed with Magnus so fast."

"I didn't jump into bed with him!" Jenna said, outraged. "He—he carried me upstairs, threw me on the bed, tore my blouse off, and—and had his way with me!"

"But he made you come first, didn't he?"

Jenna was aghast. "How did you know that?" I can't believe I'm talking about orgasms with my own daughter.

"I know him," Adele said smugly. "It's his way. So unselfish of him."

"It's just his way of buttering up a girl—I mean, a woman—so that he can, you know . . ."

"No, no, it's really sweet. He cares more about a woman's pleasure than his own." Then she gave her mother a sly look. "I see he also went into your butt."

"Oh, God!" Jenna exclaimed. "I can't believe I let him do that!" She looked pleadingly at her daughter. "Adele, I—it's been so long since I . . ."

"Yeah, I gathered that. Magnus says a woman gets pretty crabby if she doesn't get regular sex."

Jenna just hung her head.

"Look, Mom, it's okay. We all have these urges. And there's nothing wrong with a guy like Magnus satisfying us all."

"Just what are you suggesting?"

"Oh, Mom, it's obvious! You move in with us."

Jenna was thunderstruck. "You—you can't be serious!"

"Of course I'm serious! I mean, you hate this cruddy little apartment. You've said so millions of times yourself. Magnus has a big house, and there's plenty of room."

"I'm not moving into the house of a man I've known only for one day!"

"Yeah, but it was a pretty eventful day, wasn't it?"

"You stop that kind of talk!"

"Come on, Mom—it'll be fun!"

"Look," Jenna said desperately, "maybe—maybe I'll go over there for a week or two and see how things work out. That's the best I can do."

"Okay, that'll be fine."

Jenna looked askance at her daughter. "Um, what exactly will the sleeping arrangements be?" But she knew the answer to that.

"We each get him two nights a week—you, me, and Kristen. The seventh night—well, who knows?"

"You mean we're going to be some sort of harem," Jenna said in a hollow voice.

"You can think of it that way, I guess, but it's really not the way it is. There's so much love in him, I suppose he needs more than one outlet."

Jenna just shook her head. So you think that's how it is? Well, I have my doubts about that.

*

It was in mid-November, when Kristen went to a strip mall she didn't frequent very often to get some stuff for Thanksgiving, that she almost ran right into her brother Paul.

He was coming out of a sporting goods store, having just bought a new pair of sneakers, when he rounded a corner and all but collided into his sister as she was rounding the same corner in the other direction.

"Omigod, Paul!" she cried happily.

"Kristen," he said more reservedly. "It's been a while."

"I know," she said. "I'm sorry, I should have kept in better touch—but things have been pretty hectic."

"Yeah, me too."

"I guess football season's in full swing at Lorimer."

"You bet. We're doing pretty well."

"That's great!"

"How're you doing?"

Kristen looked up at her brother. When they were younger, she admired him almost to worship; and a vestige of that sentiment still remained. They had used to confide in each other on almost every possible subject, but their parents' divorce had caused a rupture in their own relationship that both regretted and didn't exactly know how to repair.

"Um, well," Kristen began, "maybe we should talk about that. Do you have some time?"

"Sure, I guess." I have some stuff to talk about too.

"There's a coffee shop across the parking lot. Let's go there."

They headed to the place. It turned out to have booths on one wall, which made for a certain amount of privacy. Both of them sensed the need for a little quiet talk away from any possible snoopers.

And yet, as they parked themselves on opposite sides of a booth after ordering lattes, they found themselves strangely tongue-tied. In fact, it seemed they couldn't even look each other in the face.

"So how are you liking college?" Paul said, to try to get the conversation going. "You just started at Manhattan, didn't you?"

"Yeah. It's been great!" Kristen said. "Pretty hard, but lots of fun. I'm literally feeling my brain being stretched with all the new stuff I'm learning!"

"Yeah, I felt the same way when I started. Met any new friends?"

"Sure! There's this girl named Adele who's—" Kristen stopped abruptly. Who's moved in with us, and shares Daddy's bed.

"Who's what?" Paul said, confused.

"Nothing. I just like her a lot. She's loads of fun. How about you?"

"Oh, nothing special. One of my friends, Curt Mansfield, is a really nice guy."

"Hmmm, I don't remember him."

"No, he transferred from somewhere in Virginia."

"Virginia! That's a long way from home."

"Yes, it is."

There was another lapse into silence. Both of them sensed that important issues needed to be discussed, but didn't know how to start. Paul decided to take the plunge.

"So how's Dad?" He'd always referred to Magnus as "Dad," thinking "Daddy" was only used by girls.

"He's good—quite good." Kristen paused significantly. "How about Mom?"

"She's doing all right. Pretty well, in fact."

Brother and sister gazed at each other; both of them had strange looks on their faces.

"You know," Kristen said slowly, "Daddy was pretty lonely after Mom left."

"Mom was pretty lonely too," he said.

"So . . ." Kristen said, reaching out to take one of Paul's hands, "he and I have become really close. Really close." She stared intently at Paul as she said this.

Paul placed his other hand on Kristen's. "I've become really close to Mom, too."

They were frozen in a kind of suspended animation for what seemed like minutes. Neither of them had done more than take a few sips of their lattes.

"Do you mean what I think you mean?" Kristen whispered.

"Do you?" Paul countered.

Kristen pulled her hands away, then covered her mouth for a moment. "Omigod!" she breathed. "Are you really telling me—?"

"There's a lot of affection in Mom, and it hasn't had an outlet lately," he said evenly.

"Same for Dad," Kristen said, her voice shaking a bit.

"So . . . how is it?" Paul ventured.

Kristen knew exactly what he meant. "It's—it's really great. I love him so much more now that we—" She couldn't bring herself to say the words.

"Was he your first?" Paul said half-audibly.

"Yes," Kristen whispered back. "Mom wasn't your first, was she?"

"No, no. I'd had a few before her."

"I was kind of mad at Mom, leaving Dad the way she did; but I also felt sorry for her. I knew she'd have trouble meeting a guy who was even close to what Dad is."

"Hey, I'm no replacement for Dad."

"Of course not—you're your own person. But she loves you."

"And I love her. I love her even more than before, now that we're—" Paul couldn't articulate the words either.

Kristen swallowed hard. "This is a really weird situation, isn't it?"

"I guess it is, in a way. But it seems to be working."

"Yeah, but—don't you think we should do something to bring our family together? I mean, it's such a shame that our parents are apart. I'm sure they still love each other."

"I think so too. But how exactly are we going to get them together? They haven't had any communication in two years or more."

"Maybe," Kristen said, "we should just tell them what's going on."

Paul blanched at the thought. "Do you really think that's such a good idea? They'll probably freak out—"

"I really don't think so. I mean, it's the old adage: what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Right?"

"I'm not entirely sure they'll see it that way. Anyway, there's a further complication at my end."

"What's that?"

"That guy Curt I mentioned? Well, he's living with us. And he's . . ." He's sharing Mom's bed, just as I am.

Kristen let out a sharp, nervous laugh, then slapped a hand over her mouth. "That's funny! Because Adele's doing the same thing with us."

"She's living with you and Dad?"

"Yeah. And so is her mom."

"Her mom? Adele's mom is with you guys? How on earth did that happen?"

"It's kind of a long story. But I don't see why we can't all be one big happy family."

"I think you're being way too optimistic about how everyone's going to react to all this. I mean, who lives this way?"

"Look," Kristen said in a no-nonsense manner, "we've gone this far. You and Mom, me and Dad, Curt and Mom, Adele and Dad, and Jenna—that's Adele's mom. So why not just throw everybody into the mix and see what happens? We're all nice people, aren't we? I mean, what's Curt like?"

"It's funny," Paul said contemplatively. "In a vague way he's kind of like Dad. Really tough and strong on the football field, but kind and gentle and tender otherwise, especially with women."

"Gee, he sounds nice!"

"He is nice. What about Adele?"

"She's super-nice too. A big girl, but really pretty and smart and caring." Lowering her voice to a whisper: "Dad took her virginity too."

A crooked smile covered Paul's face. "He did, did he? He must have liked that."

"Actually, I think he was worried that he'd hurt the poor girl. And I guess he did, but that's just what we girls have to go through."

"Yeah, that's too bad."

Kristen placed her hands on the table as if bringing a meeting to an end. "So—are we decided that we're going to tell Mom and Dad what's going on?"

"I guess," Paul said, unconvinced.

"And see if we can bring them together—at least have a face-to-face sometime?"

"Sure."

"Okay. I think this is gonna work." Kristen got up from the table and gazed down at her brother. "Don't fail me on this. I'm counting on you to come through."

"All right, all right," Paul said. But he was full of foreboding.

*

"Hi, Magnus."

"Hello, Imogen."

They decided to meet one evening at a bar roughly equidistant from their residences. It had taken Paul a day or two to gather up the gumption to spill the beans about his dad's living arrangements; and when he did so, all his apprehension about how his mother would react were confirmed. She had turned totally pale and stumbled over to the living-room couch, falling awkwardly on it. Her eyes seemed glazed, and she seemed to be staring off into space.

"Mom?" Paul said, concerned. "Are you all right?"

She didn't reply for a moment, and Paul now noticed that she was breathing heavily, almost hyperventilating.

"Mom!" he said sharply.

She turned his gaze blankly to him. "You—you're telling me that—that your Dad and your sister—?"

"Yes, Mom," Paul said. "Just like us."

Imogen winced at that. You don't need to remind me that I'm sleeping with my own son.

"I think," Paul said judiciously, "that it's just a natural thing to have happened. I get the impression Dad hasn't done much dating in the last two years."

"No, I don't suppose so."

Imogen remembered how Magnus had said lugubriously, "There'll be no other woman for me if you leave me." Imogen's lips curled at that. Well, I guess I've been replaced by my own daughter.

"And I'm sure he misses you. He must still love you."

"I don't know about that."

"Oh, come on, Mom! You were with him for twenty years! They were good years, weren't they?"

"Most of them."

"Well, then, why can't you just take him back?"

Imogen looked up to Paul, who was almost standing over her like an inquisitor. "It's not that simple—especially now that he and Kristen are . . ." Not to mention this girl Adele and, for God's sake, her mother! How many women does Magnus need?

But then the obvious thought struck her. Okay, I've taken Paul into my bed, to say nothing of Curt. So who am I to criticize?

"Anyway," Imogen went on, "I don't think he wants me. He seems to have found a perfectly satisfactory arrangement."

"Oh, Mom, that's ridiculous! I really don't think that that 'arrangement' is going to be forever." Lowering his voice: "And maybe not ours, either."

Again she gazed up at him, and Paul's heart was squeezed at the plangent look on her face.

"Hey, Mom," Paul added quickly, "don't get me wrong! I'll always love you, and I hope I'll always be—" He broke off. Always be welcome in your bed. "But—"

"I've always urged you to find someone of your own age," Imogen said. "And Curt too."

"Sure, there's that. And the same thing applies to Kristen and Adele."

"But what about this Jenna person?"

"I don't know anything about her. I really don't know how that happened. But that's just another reason why you should hammer all this out with Dad."

"No way," she said curtly. "I just can't see him again."

"Why not?" Paul said, exasperated.

"There's just too much water under the bridge. We said too many bad things to each other." But what Imogen meant was: I said too many bad things to him, just as a way of getting out of his clutches.

"Mom, people can forgive and forget. Dad doesn't hold grudges." Then he peered down at his mother. "You still love him, don't you?"

Imogen closed her eyes. "I—I don't know."

"I'm sure you do. And it's you who need to make the first move, since you're the one who left. You can't expect him to ask for a meeting. That'll look like he's begging, and he has too much pride for that."

"I have some pride too, you know."

"Sure you do—but don't you want our family to be whole again?"

"Hey, don't do a guilt trip on me!"

"I'm not, Mom. I just think, the way things now stand, that maybe the time is right for us to get back together."

"But what about Curt—and Adele—and Jenna?"

"They can all join in the mix."